I think it's a really good system for locals, and as long as you have an accurate ranking it seems like it works very well. I don't think it's very well suited for out of region attendance. When you are an out of state player and going in it can be a lot less effective at accomplishing the goal, which seems to be letting the mid level players compete with eachother, rather than having the states top players just knocking them out of bracket.
I went in and first thing in pools is I have to play FOW and realize that only one person makes it to pro bracket. That was really disheartening, mainly because I was looking forward to playing other top players from vegas. Going in very likely to lose to fow and having been knocked out of the top 4 because of losing to the #1 player doesn't seem like a good system for people who do not get to play vegas smashers often.
Then I beat him and even then everyone in amateur bracket who is supposed to have an easier time gets hurt by FOW being there, and the point of the system is to let the more mid level players not have to play top players in the amateur bracket. I'm not really sure what could be done to fix this though, as I know out of state attendance isn't really expected at a local. I really felt out of place in the whole system because they had no idea how to rank me.
I really really do like how it works for local play and mostly isolated scenes though. When you only have people that you know roughly the skill of, it does seem like something nice to get your one set with a pro over in pools and then not get "Bracket screwed". Also giving them a prize that is reachable seems really helpful, similar to how some tournaments pay out to 5th, but often someone else that could easily get that 5th spot runs into a top 3 player too early in losers.
As long as you know the top players and seed it right, it seems like a really well made system. I'd actually like to see Arizona adopt the system for their tournaments too since they rarely see out of state.
EDIT: and hope you don't mind the wall of text. I thought about it a lot before you even asked me.